


Moirai

by coxorangepippin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (yes), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, Force-teacher Kylo Ren, Mutual Pining, Or is he Ben Solo, Romance, Will Rey ever find out??, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-02-27 14:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coxorangepippin/pseuds/coxorangepippin
Summary: “You offered to teach me, once. You remember?”Kylo nodded, the memory still sharp and cold in his mind, and felt the beginnings of fear and hope clench painfully around his heart. She couldn’t mean…Rey breathed in deeply, the noise somehow deafening against the crackle of the tiny fire. Ben unconsciously held his breath with her, unable to break the silence.She closed her eyes for a moment. Kylo watched the rise and fall of her chest, and sat mutely as she stuck out her hand in front of him, her worn fingers sketching an invitation in the air.“I accept.”------------------Rey is lost.She cannot stay with the Resistance, for fear of leading Kylo Ren (or is he Ben Solo? Rey can never quite tell, anymore) to their door.In desperation, she returns to Ahch-To, hoping that its strong force presence will shield her from the connection she shares with the new Supreme Leader.But there seems to be no escaping the will of the Force...





	1. Chapter 1

A storm was raging around Ahch To.

Rey shivered, pulling the thick woollen cloak more tightly around her shoulders. The fire in her hut was substantial, but its warmth never seemed to really reach her these days; it was as though it knew her innermost thoughts, and reviled her for them, seeking to shut her out of all that was light and comforting.

Rey wasn’t sure why she’d come back here.

She knew Master Luke was gone; she had felt it, as surely as she felt the ground beneath her feet. An infinitely vast presence had expanded for a moment, joyful as a sunrise, before flaring into nothingness.

The infinite galaxy felt smaller, somehow, without him. She wasn’t even sure whether or not she ought to be calling him Master; he had only given her two lessons, neither of which she seemed to have learned very well.

Rey stared into the fire, listening to the rain lashing at the tiny stone hut she had made her home. Her meagre belongings were spread out across a low wooden bench, dwarfed by the ancient wood; she hadn’t owned anything much on Jakku, and she had hardly had time to catch her breath since she was flung headlong into a galactic conflict, let along collect material goods. Her blaster and the ruined lightsaber lay next to the Jedi texts, which were bundled in oilcloth; Rey knew they had survived far worse than damp, but she felt extremely responsible for their wellbeing, given her light-fingered visit to their former home.

Rey sighed, and leaned closer to the fire, stretching out her callused palms to try and coax some of the warmth into her veins. She had seen the blackened wreck of the Tree when she had flown over Ahch-To, seen its attenuated limbs charred and broken like a curse against the green landscape; she knew that Luke must have done it. Knew that he had likely intended it as a last gesture of finality, as the death of the Jedi. And yet…

Rey shook herself, tiny droplets of water splattering from her hair and hissing against the warm stone in front of the fire. This introspection wasn’t helpful. She hadn’t known Luke well enough to second guess his actions, and she certainly didn’t know what he would have expected of her now.

She gritted her teeth, and tried to focus only on achieving some semblance of warmth.

And suddenly-

There it was. A deep, throbbing bass note in her mind, a strange emptiness which felt as though her ears were filled with water for a moment, and then he was there.

Kylo Ren.

Or was he Ben Solo?

Rey wasn’t sure who was behind her, but she knew that she wouldn’t be turning around to find out.

“Get out of my head,” she snarled, the consonants splintering from her mouth like twisted shards of durasteel. She heard a soft sound behind her, like material brushing against a chair, and felt his looming presence growing closer, closer-

“Rey…”

There was a moment of dislocation, of pressure against her eardrums, and then he was gone.

The storm thrashed around the hut again, the wind roaring through miniscule gaps in the stone, and Rey knew she was alone.

She balled her fists in the blanket around her knees, and cursed the moisture gathering in her eyes, the lump rising in her throat. She would conquer this. She would break whatever this was.

She just hoped that she would not break herself first.

This was not the first time she had felt him, felt his presence in the Force, since she had left him kneeling on the floor of an abandoned planet. The first time it had happened after Crait, she had ignored him, the silence as pointed and lethal as a spear of ice. The second time, she had screamed at him, her rage bursting through in vitriolic torrents, poisonous and implacable. He had said nothing, but stared at her with his light-devouring eyes, dark as a moonless night, and absorbed her insults as though he somehow relished them. After that, Rey had returned to ignoring him. The connections were somehow growing in frequency, and it was becoming harder and harder to shut them off.

And, worse than any visions, were the traitorous dreams. In which she had taken Kylo’s hand, and what could have been fluttered before her unconscious eyes as a twisted, poisoned vision of happiness. Kylo had made his choice. She had made hers. And that was how it must be, because she knew now that he had not chosen her when the time had come, and that her vision had lied.

Sleep was long in coming that night, as the wind moaned high above her hut, and when Rey finally fell asleep, the light of her dying fire refracted through the tears streaking her cheeks.

 

*********

  
  
The Caretakers woke her the next morning, as they always did. Their strange, creaking dialect wasn’t one which Rey had heard before, and its cadences were too subtle for her to learn unaided; they couldn’t speak Basic, but they had nonetheless made their displeasure at her reappearance very clear.

And yet here she was. Adrift.

As the Caretakers began their daily tasks of weeding and maintenance outside her door, Rey lay in that strange, half-dark place between sleeping and waking, allowing her mind to spin freely, like a moon with no planet keeping it in its orbit.

_General Leia’s face was grave, her hands warm as they gripped Rey’s. “You know that we want you to stay, don’t you?” she had asked, her eyes seeming to see much more than Rey wanted them to. To see the dark, hidden, shameful places in her soul, and to feel only compassion for them. Rey had been firm, however. “I want to stay, too, but I have to leave; I’m not skilled enough yet to hide myself, and if Be-” she had cut herself off with a half cough, half growl. “If Kylo is searching for me, I’ll lead him right to you. Like a beacon. It isn’t safe for me to be here. I need to go somewhere where he can’t find me; somewhere that’s so strong in the Force that I’ll disappear. Like a grain of sand in a dune.”  
_ _Leia had gripped her hands wordlessly, and that gesture had offered more comfort than any empty promises. “When you are ready, we’ll be waiting.”_

Rey sat up, the memory sliding from her along with her sleep-warmed blanket as morning clarity settled in her mind. She yawned hugely, and shielded her eyes against the light which pierced the stone walls with the fierceness of arrows; the storm had blown over.

And so began another day.

Rey looked down at her blaster, and her staff, and the broken lightsaber. Another day. And she was still no closer to finding a damn answer to what she was meant to be _doing_.

Rey spat a curse through clenched teeth. The bright morning sunlight felt sour, its beauty poisoned. Abruptly unable to stand the walls around her, Rey picked up her staff, and flung open the door. The noise made the Caretakers pause in their tasks, their unfamiliar faces frozen in a familiar expression of dislike.

Rey didn’t bother with her usual attempts to be charming, instead grunting “Morning,” as she strode through their midst, out of the stone village. As she reached the beginning of the grassy hills, Rey realised that she didn’t have any clear destination in mind, but that her feet had led her to the foot of the largest mountain. At its peak stood the Temple, and the isolated plateau on which Luke had once taught her to feel the connections between every living thing, in a vast glittering tapestry of life and death.

Now, more than ever, Rey craved that sense of insignificance, of balance; she herself felt scrabbling for it at every moment, as though she were teetering on the edge of a sand dune, with the grains crumbling beneath her feet in both directions giving her a fleeting sense of stability.

Rey peered upwards, checking for signs of the intermittent storms which persistently tried to grind Ahch-To into sand, but the air was clear and fresh, and the sky was cornflower blue, tiny white clouds scudding innocently along at the edge of her vision.

Rey began to walk up the side of the mountain, its grass giving way to rockier outcrops as the air grew thinner. Rey picked up her pace as she climbed, until eventually she began to run; the landscape blurred ahead of her watering eyes, and her thighs burned white hot. As she ran, she allowed the memory of the previous night, of _his_ presence, to stream out behind her like a poisonous banner; when her lungs felt as though they were about to give out, and she was high enough to see the whole island spread out beneath her like a living tapestry, Rey mentally cut the cord binding the memory to her, allowing it to be caught by the wind and crash down into the sea many leagues below.

Rey paused, watching the boiling waves. Any trace of happiness, any scintilla of an iota of comfort which she might have felt when his solid presence had loomed at her back…she had poured them into the sea now, cleansing herself, ridding herself of emotion as the Jedi texts stated.

She had. They were gone. Entirely gone, and absolutely null and void, and never to be revisited.

Rey gritted her teeth, and ruthlessly stamped on the quiet whisper in her heart, before turning to face the top of the mountain again.

 

 

By the time she finished her completely unsuccessful meditation on the plateau, the sun was high above her, her shadow almost non-existent. Noontime. Rey wandered inside, away from the glare, and leaned against the cool wall of the Temple. Its delicately mosaicked pool glittered silently in the bright sunlight. Luke had never told her-

Well, anything really. What was this place? Who had lived here, so long ago, to lay the mosaics? Why had it been abandoned?

_So much I don’t know..._

Rey felt the breath in her lungs growing thicker with each moment. Neither the long trek nor the hours spent trying to lose herself in the Force had quieted the unease in her mind. She stared at the Jedi pool, its ancient rendering of the Force seeming hardly more meaningful in the high, echoing, abandoned space than in the worn pages of the Jedi texts.

Rey gazed at it for a few long moments, her hair whipping around her face in the playful breeze. The hopelessness of her situation rose in her chest like bile, and before she knew she had moved she was in front of the pool, and her fists were crashing into the water, desperate to ruin its calm, useless, hateful peace. Rey yelled in pure frustration, and the sound bounced between the high planes of the ceiling, growing fainter with each reverberation; the lonely echoes only fed the black rage in Rey’s chest, and she ignored the deceptive sharpness of the stones beneath the water’s surface, crashing her fists against them again and again, blood beginning to darken the crystal-clear water, not noticing when her shouts became sobs-

_No. No, no, no. Not now._

Rey felt that deep, thrumming bass note a moment too late. She closed her eyes, and pressed her bloody fists against them, shutting out the bright sunlight and the sight of the Jedi pool as it settled back into peace, thin tendrils of dark blood now marring its surface. _If I can’t see him, he can’t see me,_ she thought, remembering those few stolen moments of play on Jakku, those hide-and-seek games amongst the wreckage of an Empire.

He didn’t speak for a few moments, but she heard his sharp intake of breath.

“Rey.”

Rey pressed her hands tighter against her eyes, fighting tooth and nail to repress the tiny bubble of emotion which had appeared in her heart at the sound of his voice.

“You made your choice,” Rey rasped, her voice thick, almost breaking on the last word. “So why won’t you leave me alone?”

There was the sound of heavy, echoing footsteps, and then silence. The pool sloshed very quietly against its boundaries, still recovering from her assault, but she could hear nothing to indicate Kylo Ren’s presence.

Rey very nearly moved her hands to see whether he was still there, but perverseness and fear kept them pressed against her eyelids. Not fear of him, not anymore, but fear nonetheless.

And then something warm was touching her fists, gentle against the cuts and grazed flesh. Rey opened her eyes in surprise, and found him kneeling in front of her, close, too close-

Kylo Ren was always a hulking, black-clad presence, but his position now made Rey feel as though he were the only other living being in the galaxy as he eclipsed the daylight that streamed in from outside the Temple. He reached out slowly, as though afraid of startling a wild animal, and took her fists gently in his hands. The warmth was unexpected, as he began turning them over to inspect the damage she had done, a tiny frown marring his pale forehead, tugging on the scar that she had marked him with.

Rey was so tired. So tired of fighting alone, so tired of fighting off whatever connection had taken root in their minds. Rather than scream and spit, she simply laid her head back against the ancient walls, and watched him.

He released her hands, and something dark and treacherous within her mourned at the loss.

Ben sat back on his heels, and then rearranged himself into the cross-legged meditation position with surprising grace for someone with such long limbs. He looked around them, at the high-ceilinged room, the now-tranquil pool in its centre.

“Why is this still happening?” he asked, his voice low and thoughtful. As it had been that first time, Rey remembered, when he had told her that she was the only thing he could see. That first time…

“I have no idea,” Rey replied. She felt empty of emotion, unable to find it within herself to fight him now, and let her eyes slide shut against the noon glare.

“I thought…” Ben cleared his throat, and began again. “I felt you. Your pain.”

Rey snorted, undignified but uncaring.

Ben’s eyes were turbulent, the dark depths troubled by something Rey couldn’t identify.

“Don’t you have some Supreme Leader business to be attending to?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow. The wind whistled through the cavernous space, ruffling her hair, making Ben’s flutter around his pale face.

“You make the title insulting, somehow.” Ben quirked one corner of his mouth upwards, in what might pass for a smile. “I don’t. It’s the middle of the night here. They try and let me sleep undisturbed.”

Rey nodded once in acknowledgement, a short, sharp jerk of her chin.

“Rey, I-”

Rey looked up. Ben’s voice was urgent, his eyes stormy. His hand reached for hers again, and she raised her own in unconscious response-

He was gone.

 

*************

  
  
That night, the fine weather broke again, the winds howling around Rey’s tiny hut in a mockery of her outburst earlier.

She sat huddled before the fire. She had been trying, without success, to determine what it was Kylo might have wanted to say to her. Nothing that would change anything. Nothing that would make his choice right, she knew, because nothing save his death could release him from the role that he had stepped into.

_(Her heart went cold at the thought, but no, he’s the enemy, he’s the enemy, he’s-)_

Rey hugged herself, trying to fold her blanket more tightly around her shoulders, trying to conserve every last bit of body heat she had managed to muster. She breathed in and out rhythmically through her nose, in a meditation pattern, trying to sort through the snarled memories and disrupted thoughts that were beating themselves senseless against the inside of her skull.

_Ben._

He wasn’t an ally. Not anymore, if he ever had been. Not after what they had been through. But neither was he on her side. Kylo Ren, Ben Solo…

Rey breathed out in a sharp huff of frustration, her breath condensing into tiny water droplets that steamed in the flickering firelight. Whoever he was, it was no longer a clear dichotomy between the light and the dark. She felt it, every time he stepped across the galaxy into her presence. Just as his darkness had spots of light flaring against the black, she knew that the rage in her chest must have caused dark tendrils to bleed into her light. The roiling turmoil she saw in his eyes must reflect her own, though she hadn’t seen her reflection since landing on this Force-damned island.

Rey’s eyes were caught by a glint of steel. The lightsaber. Skywalker’s, Vader’s before him…

Rey closed her eyes. They were like the two halves of the kyber crystal, separated by forces beyond their control but joined in spirit, unable to escape the connection that bound them, but with loyalty pulling them in too many directions to count. It was hopeless. _She_ was hopeless, alone as she was.

And she was here, on this bloody sodden ridiculous island, trying to teach herself the ways of the Force from a collection of half-sensible ancient texts, while he no doubt slept each night on the finest silken sheets. Rey snorted. She felt as though the Light had, so far, not granted her much in the way of luxury.

The question that pounded through her at every moment, that swirled in dark clouds through the night air in front of her...what next? She was having little success in teaching herself, and there weren’t any Jedi left to teach her. She had tried to feel for the direction the Force wished her to go during her many hours of daily meditation, but it had remained resolutely silent. And until she did something, _anything_ , she was stuck on this bloody island with its bloody Caretakers who clearly wished her far away at best, and at the bottom of the sea at worst.

Rey leaned in close to the fire and closed her eyes, risking her eyebrows to feel its warmth. And there it was again. The third time in twenty four hours, and as if in response to her thoughts, the strange silence of the Force rumbled through her chest.

She opened her eyes.

Kylo Ren was sitting opposite her, next to the broken saber on the ancient wooden bench. His eyes reflected the firelight, and it danced in their black depths.

“Hello.”

His voice was warm, deep. Familiar.

Their eyes met, and Kylo didn’t look away. Rey felt the heat rise in her cheeks as she remembered the last time they had sat like this, in this very hut, when he had taken her hand…

She stood, the blanket falling away from her shoulders, and the broken saber winked at her in the firelight. Resolve crystallised in her mind at the sight, even as loneliness flared in her heart. Kylo stayed sitting, but his eyes were uncertain, his hands half lifted as though to push himself to his feet.

“Ben.” Rey spoke in a clipped, rushed voice, the words tumbling over themselves as though so desperate to be spoken that they would all emerge at once.

He didn't reply, clearly unsure if this presaged some further tirade, but his eyes were wary; his hands still hovered as though he was ready to leap to his feet at a moment’s notice.

“You offered to teach me, once. You remember?”

Kylo nodded, his eyes wide.

Rey walked around the fire, and took a deep breath. She was alone, but she didn't have to be.

She faced Kylo Ren, and stuck out her hand in front of his shocked expression.

“I accept.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH NO I FELL INTO THE REYLO HOLE  
> I am genuinely not sure if I'm going to continue this- my other WIPs are definitely not abandoned, but I just saw TLJ again and I really wanted to write something, because it was amazing. Please let me know if you want to read more/if it's worth continuing, because I'm sure there are already a million fics like this!
> 
> The title, in case anyone is wondering, is 'the Fates' in Greek- I have a vague outline for this fic which is sort of based on destiny vs choice, and Rey vs the Force trying to get her and Kylo to be more than bitter enemies. 
> 
> Either they're going to find neutral ground, or this whole thing is going to be done over Force Skype, I haven't decided yet! But in my mind, Rey is completely adrift at the end of TLJ, and she needs to learn more, and I want an excuse to make her and Kylo Ren spend time together (please no hate). If people want to read more, then this might end up fairly long- I have a fairly good idea of where I want it to go.
> 
> Love always, and please let me know if this is worth continuing!


	2. Chapter 2

The two newly appointed guards to Supreme Leader Ren had quickly learned not to react to the noises that came from his training rooms on the _Finalizer_.

Today, it was the staccato crackling hum of his lightsaber, followed by the angry hissing of abused metal. The guards stood up slightly straighter, and stared dead ahead, not one muscle twitch betraying the sudden flood of adrenaline that had surged, electric, through their veins.

The new Supreme Leader was a dangerous man, they knew. They had seen him returning from Crait, streaked with salt and what they had thought was blood; but the image that had imprinted itself on their retinas until their dying day was not the ominous dark red streaks, nor the sheer hulking mass of the man.

It had been the look in his eyes.

That day, and every day since, the Supreme Leader’s eyes were like wildfire. Tormented, but unable to stop rampaging until either the fire was extinguished or all the world was left a burned husk.

When the pulsing roar of the lightsaber finally ceased, and the dripping of molten metal had stopped hissing against the floor, the guards did not relax; they knew it wouldn’t be long before the aria of destruction began again.

 

*********

 

Kylo Ren sheathed his lightsaber, panting, sweat burning in his eyes. He let it burn, the tears which flooded his eyes to ease it only slightly obscuring the image which had haunted his vision for days now.

Rey.

That girl, that scavenger, that _nothing._

Kylo swiped at his eyes viciously, dragging his arm across his face in an effort to remove the mental image which seemed to hang in the air whenever he wasn’t training. And even training, even the familiar violent song of his lightsaber, carried its own forbidden memories. Rey, fighting with him, back to back, her hand on his hip and his back supporting her weight…

No. _No_.

Kylo tore off his sweat soaked tunic, the black material rending easily under his fingertips, and flung it towards the corner of the room. He pressed a touchpad on the side of the wall, and stepped into the refresher, hoping against hope that he would just drown in it.

He was greeted by the full-length mirror that took up one side of the refresher, and was unable to avoid his reflection, as he always tried to these days. Kylo studied himself for a few moments, curious as to whether the maelstrom of chaos within his heart was reflected on his face.

The face that greeted him was ravaged. His hair was sweat-soaked and matted, sticking to his face in irregular calligraphic patterns, coal black against his ivory skin. His eyes had familiar dark shadows beneath them; Kylo made eye contact with himself for a fleeting second, and then found his eyes inexorably drawn to the scar which had faded to a thin, arching line. It dragged across his eyebrow and his cheek, and then ran down his broad chest; the muscles that were still taut from his exercise rippled as he reached one hand up to touch the mark _she_ had left on him. The mark she had left that night in the forest, when…

Kylo growled, and slammed one hand into the mirror, sending a spiderweb of thin cracks meandering out from his fist. Rage burned hot in his heart, consuming and sleepless. He would be free of her. He would _make_ himself free of her, with her death if that’s what it took. She was no one, and nothing.

Kylo sighed, and felt the tide of rage subside just as quickly as it had risen up. He was tired. It had been a long training session, and he hadn’t slept well since the night _she_ had left him on Crait. He looked at the small digital day-cycle clock that blinked red in the steel walls; he had a meeting with the Generals in about half an hour.

Kylo turned the shower on, and shrugged out of his remaining clothes. Undulating clouds of steam filled the room, eddying with every movement. After a few moments, Kylo stepped under the torrent of steaming water, and sighed as it struck his sweat-slicked skin.

He leaned back against the wall, and breathed deeply, trying to reach that serene point of balance which his training used to bring him to. That point at which the darkness within him surrounded his heart like a starless night, comforting and smothering, where his traitorous thoughts were silenced beneath its clinging blackness.

Kylo fell naturally into the meditation breath patterns, and sank down through the layers of his consciousness with ease. He had done this ten thousand times. He would not fail now.

He felt darkness approaching, its familiar tendrils reaching for him lovingly, like a parents arms. He reached back with his mind, but...

Kylo frowned, not feeling the water droplets as they trickled through his hair. Something was different. How could he see the darkness like this, as if in relief? He couldn’t usually-

Kylo felt ice close around his heart. Something was casting a shadow.

He surfaced from the meditation with a gasp, and the steam that now completely filled the refresher lodged in his throat. As he coughed, Kylo slammed the refresher off, and stepped out, roughly drying himself with the immaculately folded towels. He hurriedly pulled on a set of black robes, all the while resolutely repressing the thought that he could not have, _would_ not have, could not afford to allow himself to think.

He strode back through the mangled training room, and the guards that had been waiting outside hurried to follow him as he stormed through the corridors of the Finalizer like a vengeful shadow. Kylo slammed open the door to the conference room, and found Hux waiting for him, along with Generals, who had frozen at the sound of the door.

“Generals,” Kylo said into the sudden silence. He strode across to his waiting chair, higher than the others around the table, and sank into it. He rested his hand on his chin, and motioned for Hux to begin.

Hux's mouth opened and closed for a few moments, as he regained his composure, and then he began his report. His thin, nasal voice fell on Kylo's ears like acid rain. There was nothing concrete, it seemed, but there were some likely planets that might be housing the rebel scum.

Kylo felt the rage run boiling through his veins again at the thought.

_I will crush them. And then, if she still will not come to me, I will crush her._

 

**********

  
  
It was only later that night, when Kylo was finally alone, that he allowed himself to lose his composure.

The tears were hot, and left tiny burning trails across his face, as though they too would leave scars. Kylo flung himself down on his bed, and allowed them to fall, trickling silently into his dark hair.

It had been a few weeks now, since that night, the night on which he had thought _not alone, never alone again_. Since she had stood with him, as he had known she would. Since he had killed the creature that had robbed him of all that he had ever known, promised him the galaxy, and in the end given him only pain.

And although Kylo knew he ought to be filled with betrayal (and it was there, it lurked beneath the surface of his thoughts like a sleeping snake), the feeling he was left with at the end of each day was a crushing sense of loneliness.

He knew, now, that there was only one other soul like his in the galaxy. His twin, his mirror. He knew, because he had seen her, had felt her, across whatever strange connection they shared; and though Snoke had claimed ownership of it, Kylo had seen her again, after the Supreme Leader had been left bisected on the seat of his throne.

She had been there, in front of him, standing tall and shining on the ruined blood-red surface of Crait. Their eyes had met, and for one second, Kylo had forgotten where he was, and who he was, and why she had left him there in the throne room. Hope had blossomed in his heart, alien and strange, and then-

And then she had closed the door to him.

Kylo’s tears continued to trail, desolate and stinging, across his cheeks. He had gained the galaxy. He had, now, what he had always been promised; he had taken it for himself, when it had not been offered, like a true disciple of the dark side. But…

Kylo sat up, his hair falling into his eyes like a dark curtain, as though it could block out the ship he sat in, the choice he had made.

He paused, and tilted his head, the sense of something else in the room with him becoming suddenly sharp.

There it was. That strange, slight pressure on the back of his well-guarded mind, and a thrumming deep note which sounded somehow sweet. Kylo leapt to his feet, dashing the tears away from his face. Was this..?

_She's here._

Firelit and shining, she was facing away from him, curled in on herself as though she was cold. A blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and her hair streamed loose across the back of her neck. Her hands were stretched out into empty space, which looked odd here in the polished durasteel of Kylo’s quarters, but he guessed she was reaching for a fire.

The sight of her stoked the embers that had been smouldering in Kylo’s heart for weeks. They burst into life at the slightest pressure, a conflagration of want and longing and hope and betrayal and hatred, all combusting at the same moment, and Kylo took an unwitting step towards her, his long robes brushing against the floor in a sigh that he would never allow himself in her presence.

He stretched out one hand, the memory of her fingers in his vivid for a moment, and then…

“Get out of my head,” she snarled, and the venom in her tone made Kylo drop his hand from where it had been, a few inches away from her hair.

He couldn’t allow this to continue. He knew her. He knew that she must be lost, alone, purposeless, as he had become.

“Rey…” Kylo spoke, his voice thick with an emotion that he couldn’t identify, and didn’t want to know the name of.

And then the strange thrumming note ceased, and she was gone, her fire and warmth gone with her.

Kylo dropped back onto his bed, and rested his face in his hands.

He did not sleep that night.

 

***********

 

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren did not enjoy reading reports, and tonight there were an uncountable number of them. Despite his sleepless night, he had managed to maintain his focus; they had narrowed down the new Resistance base to one quadrant of the Outer Rim. There were a vast number of planets within it, but now he knew that it was just a question of time. He ran his hands through his dark hair, and pressed his forefinger and thumb against the bridge of his nose to try and stave off the headache that was brewing.

The First Order’s surveillance and espionage network was second to none. They were able to track the course of a single credit spent on Canto Bight through the seediest reaches of the most uninhabitable planets, or a single ship from one end of the galaxy to the other, no matter how they tried to cloak themselves. But so far, the Resistance had evaded them. If his mother was still with them, then that would explain it, but…

Kylo paused in his reading, and sat up slightly. He released the bridge of his nose, all thoughts of a headache forgotten.

He felt something. Like a shout at the edge of his thoughts, not his own, but not unfamiliar. He put down the papers he was holding, and raised his head, though of course no one could be in his chambers but himself. There it was again…

And suddenly, a torrent of rage and pain and purposelessness rose in his chest, though it did not belong to him. There was pain there, too, though Kylo couldn’t tell where it was located, because the overwhelming onslaught of emotion made him freeze in his seat, and then…

She was there again. Rey. Sitting on the steel floor, her hands pressed over her eyes, her breathing heavy.

Kylo stood, his robes billowing around him, the last acrid taste of anger fading from his tongue. _It was hers,_ he suddenly knew, _all that anger, all that pain..._

The thought lodged itself in his heart like a thorn. She was suffering.

_Almost as much as me._

“Rey.” Kylo spoke into the heavy air, which was broken only by her harsh breathing. He had never seen her like this before, so raw, so open, and he didn’t know what to say.

“You made your choice,” Rey rasped, her voice thick, “So why won’t you leave me alone?”

Kylo heard the break in her last word, and hesitated for a few moments, unsure of what to do. He studied her, his dark eyes searching for a clue as to what might have caused her sudden outburst.

Rey was curled into herself, leaning her back against some surface he could not see, her fists pressed against her eyes. There was blood running down her hands.

At the sight of her blood, Kylo’s indecision evaporated. He strode forwards, and crouched in front of her, reaching for her hands before he had fully realised what he was doing. Some nearly-suffocated voice in his heart cried out, needing to know, to be sure that she was safe, guiding his feet towards her before his brain could catch up.

As he gently pried her hands away from her face, he saw her eyes flutter open, and was momentarily taken aback by the sight of bright tears gathered in her eyelashes. Her eyes were just as warm, just as wide as he remembered, brown and green and endless. Their warmth seemed to draw him in, helpless as a moth before an oil lamp, filling some aching dark chasm that he had ignored for too long. The warmth of her hands spread upwards through his veins, lodging itself in his chest, and he was frozen in place, he could not fight it...

She blinked, and Kylo found he could move again. He hurriedly looked away before he could get lost in that strange sensation again, and examined her injuries. He turned her hands over in his, gently, carefully avoiding the scraped and puncture marks that littered her fists. He tried to repress the memories of a different night, and a voluntarily offered touch. _What has she been doing..?_

He frowned, the sight of the already-congealing blood painful in a way he didn’t fully recognise. However, he was satisfied that the damage was superficial; nothing that would leave a scar.

Kylo looked up again, and met her eyes. He didn’t know how long this miracle of tolerance would last, but for now, she seemed content not to shout and spit at him. He let her hands go, not wanting to push her past her limit, and stepped backwards, settling against the floor in the cross-legged meditation pose. The loss of her hands in his left an ache like ice-burned skin. He wondered where he was sitting, from her perspective.

Quite suddenly, as if in response to his thought, he could see where they were. Her surroundings bloomed around him like an ink-stain in water; he was in a high-ceilinged room, a cave really, which seemed to have been carved from rock. Stalactites hung low from the ceiling, almost meeting the floor, and the light was dim and cool, salt lacing the air as though they were near the sea. A few feet away there was a low pool cut into the floor, the surface just settling as though it had been disturbed; Kylo could just make out an image under the surface, black and white balanced in a circular pattern, with some kind of figure in the centre.

He had never seen this place before. Rey watched him silently as he examined the surroundings.

“Why is this still happening?” Kylo asked, unable to bear the quiet between them. She hadn’t spoken anything but vitriol to him the last time they met, but he though that even poisoned words would be better than this frigid, strained silence.

“I have no idea,” Rey replied. She sounded exhausted, hopeless; even so, her voice was warmer than any Kylo had heard in weeks.

“I thought…” Kylo felt a catch in his throat as he remembered the wave of hopelessness and hatred that had swept through his chest as though it were his own. “I felt you. Your pain.”

Rey snorted, the sound so at odds with Kylo’s own turbulent thoughts that he couldn’t help but let the corner of his mouth lift slightly.

“Don’t you have some Supreme Leader business to be attending to?” she asked, one of her eyebrows arching in a mocking enquiry.

“You make the title insulting, somehow.” Kylo said, feeling his heart lift with every word she spoke. She hadn’t shouted once, yet. And her enquiries were almost kind, if flippant, the sort of thing you might say to an acquaintance, or a friend… “I don’t. It’s the middle of the night here. They try and let me sleep undisturbed.”

Rey nodded once in acknowledgement, a short, sharp jerk of her chin.

Kylo saw the dark shadows under her eyes, and knew that they matched his own. Had she not been sleeping? He didn’t know what the feeling that was pushing hard against his throat was, but he couldn’t let this be the way things would be from now on. Could not let their only communication be short, and painful, and full of unspoken words, and broken futures.

Kylo opened his mouth to speak, though he didn’t quite know what he was going to say.

“Rey, I-”

He paused, unable to articulate the mass of writhing thought that he desperately needed her to understand, and reached one hand out towards her in an echo of her own offer of companionship what felt like a lifetime ago. He saw her hand lift in response, and his heart throbbed-

She was gone. The high-ceilinged cave, the pool, and Rey, all vanished into the dark air.

Kylo felt the weight of a thousand unsaid words heavy on his chest, and collapsed forwards on to the desk, uncaringly knocking papers to the floor as he rested his forehead on his folded arms. It was probably for the best.

_What could I possibly say that she would want to hear, anyway?_

_I’m a monster._

 

************

 

The masks were mangled beyond repair.

Kylo stared at them, and the empty eye sockets stared mockingly back. Twisted, broken.

_Like me._

Kylo had been attempting to meditate for an hour now, attempting to sink back into the calm darkness that had always welcomed him. He had denied what he had seen during his last mediation, sure that the light which had illuminated the outline of the darkness was just a mistake, a one-off, a minor transgression on his part.

But now, he was sure.

Sitting cross legged in his meditation chamber, Kylo Ren had seen the truth. When he tried to sink into the darkness, he was surrounded by tiny, burning embers of light, flaring hopefully against the all consuming black. They were minuscule, casting no more than a match's worth of brightness, still nearly consumed by the darkness, and yet still they were there. All that he had repressed, all that he had built strong and impenetrable walls around, it was breaking through. The tiny embers contained memories of his mother's hands gentle in his hair, his father's permanent leather-jackets-and-cologne smell, the sound of piano music from a party he had attended as a boy, allowed to stay up past his bedtime to hear the performance, the sight of the waterfalls on Naboo when he had gone there with his mother for a rare holiday...

Kylo pressed strong fingers against his temples, pushing the curling dark hair that this mother had always loved away from his face. He had been sure that he had crushed it. Sure that behind those walls in his mind, thicker and stronger than durasteel, all that was Ben Solo must have withered and died.

And yet now, after seeing Rey twice in such a short space of time, the light in his soul was straining at its restraints, like seeking like, Rey’s sun attracting his pathetic remnants of brightness like magnets to the core of a planet.

Kylo flinched automatically, waiting for the pain which always accompanied the discovery of more light in his soul, waiting for the bone breaking agony…

It didn’t come.

 _Of course._ Kylo opened his eyes, and stared into the empty twin masks of Vader and himself, where they sat opposite his meditation platform. That pain would never come again. He had seen to that.

Kylo stared at the twisted mask of Darth Vader. His ancestor, the one whom he had revered above all others, the one whose legacy he would one day fulfil.

_But what was that legacy, really?_

Kylo stared at the mask, willing it to answer.

Though the mask remained silent, as if in answer, that deep, sweet bass note began reverberating through his skull.

 _Not again,_ he thought. _Not now. Not while I’m still…_

But there she was. Rey, her hair loose, her thin blanket pulled around her shoulders, the firelight sparkling in her wide eyes.

Kylo waited, watching her. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t shout either. He looked down, and saw that he was sitting on a bench; crude and primitive, it was littered with sparse possessions, none of which he recognised except the shattered hilt of a lightsaber, a relic of what almost was.

Kylo looked up. Rey was watching him.

“Hello,” he said, and then immediately regretted it, mentally flinching. What kind of a greeting was that to someone who considered him a mortal enemy?

But Rey didn’t respond, either to curse or to order him out. She just continued to watch him, their eyes locked above the flickering firelight. Kylo remembered the last time that she had sat like this, open, unjudging, her hand outstretched towards him, and felt traitorous heat coiling around his cheeks. The moment stretched, taut and fragile, their gazes never wavering, and Kylo felt wilder and wilder thoughts racing through his mind. What if he reached for her now? What if he offered her the galaxy again, what if he-

Suddenly, Rey stood.

The blanket fell away, and Kylo felt the heat in his cheeks flare slightly hotter at the sight of her exposed shoulders. And then she was walking towards him, around the fire.

Kylo had no idea what this meant. She had never approached him before, unless it was with fatal intent; but she was walking calmly, and slowly, no hint of rage or revenge in her angular face. Kylo raised his hands, ready to leap to his feet; he knew she couldn’t kill him here, but he also knew she might give it a damn good try.

She was standing in front of him now, her wide eyes focussed, and her stance strong and sure.

“Ben,” she spoke in that damned way of hers, and Kylo didn’t even bother to correct her, no longer hating the tiny leap of his heart when she used the name he had forsworn so long ago. When she was there, what was the difference between himself and the presumed-dead half of himself which he had tried to starve in a steel prison?

“Yes?” he replied, voice cautious, wary of startling her off like an animal in the woods.

“You offered to teach me, once. You remember?”

Kylo nodded, the memory still sharp and cold in his mind, and felt the beginnings of fear and hope clench painfully around his heart. She couldn’t mean…

Rey breathed in deeply, the noise somehow deafening against the crackle of the tiny fire. Ben unconsciously held his breath with her, unable to break the silence.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Kylo watched the rise and fall of her chest, and sat mutely as she stuck out her hand in front of him, her worn fingers sketching an invitation in the air.

“I accept.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to keep writing this!
> 
> First of all, THANK YOU endlessly to everyone who encouraged me to keep going; I appreciate it more than I can say. You're all amazing; sorry this update is a few days later than I expected.
> 
> Secondly, I hope no one minds the repeat dialogue etc., but I really wanted to write the same period of time from Kylo's perspective. From this point on I'll probably be doing bits and bobs from their different POVs, but I won't be repeating whole chapters again. 
> 
> Thirdly, in my opinion Kylo Ren is FOR SURE the most dramatic Skywalker yet, which is why I've written him the way I have. In case anyone was wondering, he's definitely not gone over to the light side of the force yet, and he won't; I don't see that being something he could ever do. He will for sure have some more dark and dangerous moments before this fic is done. 
> 
> Lastly, thank you so so much for reading! I would massively appreciate any feedback, or kudos, or anything you care to leave, because I am a gremlin that lives on positive reinforcement. 
> 
> Love always x


	3. Chapter 3

A peal of thunder rolled around the eaves of the hut, shaking loose a few fragments of stone. They rained down behind Rey’s back, striking the floor with sharp taps.

The silence in the hut stretched, billowed, and solidified.

Kylo looked up at Rey from his seat on the crudely carved wooden bench. His dark eyes were wary; Rey could see the cogs turning in his mind, trying to determine her hidden motives.

She lifted her chin, and stretched her hand a few centimetres closer to him, her offer floating tantalisingly in the air between them. Rey held her breath. A few moments passed.

The silence grew deafeningly loud.

Finally, Kylo spoke.

“You…accept?” His voice was low, and his eyes were locked on hers with an almost frightening intensity; his hands clenched into fists in his lap, and then unclenched, the knuckles bone white against his pale skin.

Rey nodded, her eyes still fixed on his.

Kylo surged to his feet. His height and his broadness dwarfed the ancient stone hut, and Rey took an involuntary step back. His black cloak billowed, blocking the light from the fire, plunging her into darkness; when she met his eyes, tilting her chin upwards to get a clear view of his face, the look she saw in them sucked all the air from the room.

His eyes were burning. Kylo’s face was tense, his lip trembling slightly as he loomed over her.

“Why. Why now. Why are you _accepting_ me now?” he asked, his voice tight and restrained, his eyes smouldering, consuming all the oxygen in the hut.

“I don’t…what do you mean?” Rey asked, her voice still firm despite the fear that had begun to coil around her heart.

Kylo’s voice was still low, and cut through the air like a blaster shot, each syllable perfectly pronounced and cold enough to grow ice crystals. “I offered you everything. I offered you the _galaxy_. You refused me. You _left_ me. And now you _accept_? It is very late to start accepting anything from me, Rey of Jakku.”

Kylo turned his back on her, his towering figure still eclipsing the fire, the only source of light in the room.

Rey felt anger flare in her veins. So this was what the great and mighty Kylo Ren thought he had offered her?

Rey’s voice was not low, not icy. It was loud, and furious, and hot. “You didn’t offer me the galaxy, Ben. You offered me a lifetime of cruelty and slavery to the dark side. You offered me the death of my _friends._ ”

Rey grabbed Kylo’s arm, trying to force him to look at her, and he spun as though he had been electrified. His nostrils were flared, his chest heaving, the last vestiges of his brittle self control evaporating.

“I didn’t offer you the dark side, Rey!” His hands clenched into fists, his whole body tense as a strung wire, but Rey didn’t flinch. His words grew more and more frantic, tearing into the stormy air of the hut as though hoping to wound her. “No more Jedi, no more Sith! I offered you the chance to _fix_ this! To end this pointless bloodshed! To rule with me, and bring order and peace to the galaxy!”

Rey took a step forward. Their faces were close now, just a few feet apart. She could feel the rage that she had fought so long to suppress boiling in every cell, burning her from the inside. “At what cost, Ben? At the cost of my friends? Another planet destroyed? Another hundred thousand deaths on my hands? When will you understand that order through bloodshed is just war by another name?”

Rey saw a muscle jumping in Kylo’s cheek, his jaw clenching and unclenching. He was close enough that she could see every freckle that was dusted across his nose.

He disappeared.

 

*********

 

The firelight flooded back into Rey’s eyes, no longer eclipsed by Ben’s dark presence. But somehow, she felt colder than before.

Rey collapsed onto her sleeping roll, and rested her head in her hands, staring unseeingly into the roiling firelight. It was always so…draining, talking to Ben. Like they were two magnets, being forced together with the same polarity, repelling and springing apart as soon as they were released.

Rey flung herself backwards and rolled herself up in her meagre blankets, suddenly bone-weary. She could still see Ben’s dark eyes, burning with an all-consuming rage, focussed on her from a few inches away.

Rey punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape, with slightly more force than was necessary, and shoved her face into it to block out the dying light of the fire.

_Bloody stupid, bloody self-righteous Kylo Ren._

The wind howled as though in agreement. The hut felt terribly empty, now that his enormous figure had been removed; Rey could feel the empty air pressing down on her.

Rey realised that she was never going to get to sleep with rage still coursing hotly through her veins. She turned over, and tucked her hands behind her head, gazing up at the ceiling.

Time. She had too much time on her hands here. Too much time to reflect and to think, not enough to do; it was no wonder that she was dwelling on Kylo Ren, who was sometimes Ben Solo.

Ben’s words rang in her ears. _I offered you the galaxy_. She couldn’t help but remember the night he had offered it to her, the last time they had been together in reality, not in the strange liminal way the Force connected them.

_The throne room was burning._

_Ben’s eyes were fixed on her from across the room; they were both panting, battle-stained and injured, victorious, and the enormity of what they had just done was beginning to spiral through the air like the ashes that drifted from the burning banners._

_Ben had come to her, then, had stretched out a hand as she once had; and Rey had been horribly, perilously close to taking it. Perilously close to staying with this man that was so consumed by his struggle against the light, so determined to impress upon the galaxy the order that he lacked in his own heart. Rey didn’t know what it was that bound them; he had seen her mind, and she had seen his, and from that moment on they had seemed to be either side of a great mirror, as close as a reflection but just as unreachable._

_Rey recognised in him the same hunger that she felt. For belonging, for family. He was alone, as she was; he had been betrayed by his blood, just as she had. As his gloved hand had reached for her, her heart had longed to take it, to be drawn into his embrace and never to feel alone again._

_But her friends were outside. She could see them, feel their lives being snuffed out with every passing moment; he had refused to save them, and broken her heart. Rey had left him there, injured but not in danger, on the floor of the room that they had fought side-by-side in moments before._

Rey sighed. The memory was so vivid; she wondered if it would ever fade, if she would ever be able to stop seeing Ben’s face when she had shut the door of the Falcon to him.

Rey sat up. It was pointless to try and sleep like this, with memories that brought back confusing and painful emotions so strong in her mind. The Jedi were meant to be free of passion.

She folded her legs under her blankets, took a deep breath in through her nose, and began to meditate.

 

********

 

Kylo Ren had unsheathed his lightsaber within seconds of reappearing in his chambers.

Damn her. _Damn her._

He swung the crackling blade towards the table, and the huge marble block splintered into two with a deafening crash. Papers spilled across the floor, some now with scorch marks, others slowly spreading with fire.

Kylo resheathed the blade, and flung the weapon across the room. It struck the durasteel wall and bounced, coming back to rest at his feet, a tiny new dent added to the collection of scratches in its casing.

Kylo took in several deep breaths, trying to subdue the flood of anger she had released in him. It wouldn’t be seemly for the Supreme Leader to destroy his own chambers.

Kylo flung himself down into his chair, in front of the ruined desk. Still. How _could_ she? How could that damn scavenger have the nerve to say no, over and over again, refusal after refusal, even after he offered her everything that he had, everything that he was?

He remembered it so clearly. He had bared his soul, had asked, had _begged_ , and still she had left him there, unconscious in the burning debris. He might have been dead for all she knew, if she even cared.

Kylo kicked at one half of the marble table, sending it flying a few feet away, and got a burning pain in his foot for his trouble. He focussed on the familiar sensation, drawing the pain deep into his mind, using its uncomplicated hurt to quieten the clamouring of his mind.

Kylo stood up. He would not allow Rey to disturb him any more than she already had in the last twenty four hours. He tore off his cloak, tugged his robes over his head, and collapsed into his bed, the silk sheets comforting and cool against his anger-flushed skin. Kylo closed his eyes.

Maybe, finally, he could get some sleep.

He managed to keep his eyes closed for a few minutes, with the silence gradually growing more and more oppressive. Then he opened them again with a muffled curse. The night’s events were playing before his eyes in a twisted kaleidoscope of anger and longing. He could still see Rey’s face, so close to his own, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames…

Kylo sat bolt upright. Something was pressing against the well-fortified corners of his mind, trying to find purchase against the smooth steel barriers that he hid his consciousness behind. The presence felt like sun, and sand, and heat.

_Rey_.

Kylo swung his legs out of bed, his feet resting on the chilled steel floor, his bare chest cold in the recycled air.

_What is she doing?_

Kylo closed his eyes, and followed the feeling of her presence to where it fluttered against the edge of his awareness. He found her. Her mind was open, unguarded; _she must be doing this unconsciously,_ Kylo realised. She was deep in the Force, her mind connected to the great universal flow, and it had brought her to him.

_She’s thinking of me._

The thought lit a tiny fire in his heart, an ember he had thought long doused flaring to life at the slightest touch of her thoughts.

He felt the touch of her mind on his like a brush of her fingers against his cheek, and her thoughts flowed through him like a swift and half-unintelligible conversation heard through a closed door.

She was remembering the night that he had asked her to rule by his side. He saw the throne room, and his own face, slightly blurred by memory and distance; he saw his own pathetically open expression, the desperation clear as daylight, and felt self-disgust rising like bile in his stomach. But then her thoughts moved on in quick succession; her pain at her refusal, her loneliness…

Kylo breathed in sharply. She had been so close. So _close_ to taking his hand. She had wanted to, he felt it; he felt the moment that her heart broke, as she reached for the lightsaber. Saw his own unconscious form spread-eagled on the ash-coated floor; saw her hand tracing his cheek, checking his pulse, returning his lightsaber to its holster.

Kylo felt the breath stop in his lungs. _She had…_

Suddenly, Rey’s thoughts changed. The flickering images disappeared; they were replaced by a sense of wariness, of watchfulness. She knew he was there.

Rey’s voice spoke suddenly in his mind.

_Ben?_

Kylo breathed in slowly, trying to slow his racing pulse. He felt Rey’s confusion in his mind, felt that she couldn’t tell if he heard her or not.

He made his decision.

He reached out to her, felt her mind blazing like a sun, and felt the answering light within him struggling to escape its prison, to go to her.

For the briefest of moments, her mind was open to him again; he felt her sadness, her directionless loneliness on whatever godforsaken island it was she had hidden herself on. He recognised the feeling; it was one which lay close against his own bones at every moment of every day.

He remembered how it had felt to have her weight on his back, to have her standing with him against the world.

He took another deep breath, and replied.

_Rey._

_I’ll teach you._

 

*********

  
  
Rey opened her eyes with a gasp, losing her grip on the Force in shock.

Her meditation had gone well, plunging her into that galaxy-spanning patterns of glittering lights which made up the Force; her heart had lead her to memories of that night which had so occupied her thoughts, and Rey had followed, trusting the Force to show her what she needed to know.

And then, Ben had been there, in her head, speaking to her as though he still sat a few feet away.

For a just few moments, she had felt his mind, just as she had that night in the interrogation room; the loneliness, the pain, the still-present light hiding just beneath the surface of his impenetrable darkness. The longing he still felt whenever he thought of that night, when she had so very nearly taken his hand. The depth of his anger chilled her blood; but the pain of his loneliness was as familiar to her as her own face.

And then, he had agreed. He would teach her.

Rey smiled.

There was still hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -FORCE SKYPE INTENSIFIES-
> 
> This update was a lot faster than I expected- I got a few free hours and I'm really enjoying writing this! Those two space kids have so much angst.
> 
> Next chapter: they do Force Stuff, and hopefully I can move the story on a bit. Sorry for the slow pacing; I never usually write anything this slow-burn, but I have a terrible feeling that's the way this story is heading. Whoops! I think this is the last of the sort of 'setting-up' chapters; from hereon out it'll be a bit more plot-driven.
> 
> Please let me know what you think with a comment/kudos- it really does help with motivation knowing that someone is actually reading this.
> 
> Love x


	4. Chapter 4

Rey awoke slowly the next morning to the usual creaking, incomprehensible dialect of the Caretakers outside her hut. She felt light, somehow, warm despite the chilly morning air; in that half-dark, quiet place between sleeping and waking, she drifted, semi-conscious.

For a few blessedly calm moments, she shut her eyes again, and revelled in the ability to feel her toes; they had been numb with cold since her first night here, and Rey had been beginning to wonder if she would ever feel them again. Maybe they would fall off. She wondered how that would affect her lightsaber stance…

Rey sat bolt upright, the last dregs of sleep, and the nonsensical ribbon of her thoughts abruptly disappearing.

_Ben._

She leapt up from her sleeping roll, and then realised that she had absolutely no idea why she had done so. She felt…imminent, somehow. As though something important had been decided.

_Ben’s going to teach me._

Rey ran her hands through her hair, which was so unwashed that even her fellow Jakku stragglers would probably have looked at it askance. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

Something glinted in the morning light, an alien hint of steel in the organic materials of the hut. The broken lightsaber. Rey stared at it, and felt a wave of emotion sweep through her, pulling at her heart.

_Joy. Relief. Hope. Worry. Terror. Doubt._

He had said he would teach her. She had felt the tiny flares of light in his mind, the thick walls that he kept his heart behind; but…

Rey walked to the door and flung it open. She always thought better in the open air; it was so green here, and it was restful to her starved soul, filling the aching void that had led her younger self to try and nurture the few, pathetic, poisonous weeds that grew in her AT-AT home.

She picked up her staff and began to walk.

When she reached the edge of the village, the rocky cliffscape and the roaring sea unfolded before her. The island took about two hours to completely circumnavigate, but it was treacherous, and she couldn’t allow her mind to wander completely if she didn’t want to end up in the crashing waves below. The porgs were calling from the cliff’s edge, their shrill cries echoing and lonely in the isolated landscape; far below, she could see the gargantuan fin of the sailfish as they began their morning hunt. There was a brisk breeze in the air that presaged a storm, but Rey thought that she had a few hours before it descended on the island; for now, the air was clean and bright, with a tiny hint of warmth from the pale sun.

Rey tilted her face upwards, and allowed the rays to slightly warm the tip of her nose; even this, this cold and weak sunlight, was a gift. It was evidence that she was no longer a prisoner in a tomb of her own making, no longer scratched and bound by the desert which had tried to claim her for its own.

Rey sighed. She wouldn't sacrifice her new freedom for anything, but she did miss the heat.

She set her feet on the narrow chalk path that led around the very edge of the island, and hefted her staff, her feet so used to this route by now that they did not need her direction; it left her mind free to spiral into thought, to poke at her problems without the suffocating airlessness of her stone hut.

Rey thought about Kylo Ren, and the fact that she had made a deal with the devil.

She was no longer directionless, no longer adrift, because she had clung to the only floating wreckage in a vast sea of doubt. It may be rotten, and it may be likely to drag her below the waves if she so much as put a foot wrong, but it was something; a temporary reprieve, a stay of execution.

Rey resolutely denied the tiny flare of warmth in her heart at the thought of Ben teaching her; this was a business arrangement. A pragmatic course for both of them. Ben would get a sparring partner, someone who was his only equal in the galaxy, and she would get training that she desperately needed.

Rey paused on a rocky outcrop, and peered out at the foaming waves a hundred feet below. Their crashing was relentless, furious, but restful somehow; this island had stood beneath their assault for uncounted years, occasionally breaking, occasionally wearing down beneath their onslaught, but still standing firm.

She felt the salt spray gathering in her hair, and licked her lips; the acrid taste was strong on her skin.

Rey was no fool. She knew that Kylo Ren had ulterior motives. She knew that he would try to turn her, that the dark side was always waiting just out of sight, as close as her every thought, in her passion and her anger and her hatred…

Rey huffed out a breath of disgust, and turned her back on the vast, heaving sea, turning inland. The ground beneath her feet grew smoother, steeper; covered in close-cropped grass, rather than shale.

Her mind continued to spin. The dark side. The Sith. What did she really know about any of it? Rey pictured the Jedi texts, their allusions and half-helpful hints, their insistence on tranquillity…

_But I am not tranquil._

She kept walking, letting the salt-rimed air blow through her hair, cleansing her thoughts. She walked until the sun was high overhead, misted over with cloud; the storm was still a way off. She paused, and looked around, wondering which direction to take next.

Rey found herself at the entrance of the valley that led to the ancient, blackened Jedi tree, its vast, looming mass blotting out the weak sunlight. She put her foot on the first of its many steps, and began to climb downwards, winding away from the stark hillside into the darkness of the crags.

_I am not tranquil. I have so much hatred. So much rage. So much love, so much anger…_

Rey panted, her thighs burning with the effort of the climb downwards.

And then, there was Ben. Kylo. Ben. Whoever he was.

Her feelings for him were a Gordian knot, snarled and impenetrable and utterly incomprehensible. They were dripping with poison, betrayal, old hope and a future that would now never be…So many emotions, all bound into one tangled mess. She was as far from the Jedi tranquillity as she had been the first day she met Luke Skywalker. Further, even; that had been before Kylo and she had talked, before they had...whatever they had done.

Rey thought of his face, his voice echoing in her mind.

_Rey. I’ll teach you._

He was so…scared. So alone. Rey knew that he still clung to the dark side, to the embrace of pain that had been his only sure foundation thus far, but….

_Can he still be turned?_

_And, more importantly, can I?_

Rey came to a halt, her breath short in her chest. There it was. Ahead of her, the blackened site of the ancient tree, its once-mighty limbs warped and twisted and soot-stained.

Rey took a few steps closer. It didn’t call to her, as it once had, but there was something…

She closed the distance, and ran a hand over the blackened wood. Rain-dampened ash smeared itself across her fingers in an inky blotch. She rubbed it off on her cloak; it was already so filthy that one more stain wouldn’t make a difference.

Rey stepped back, away from the burned out husk, abruptly saddened by its lost splendour. She walked several feet away, to where a grassy hummock raised itself from the landscape, and sat on the slightly damp grass.

She let her head fall into her hands. Luke had done this. Luke, the Jedi Master, the Legend, the one who had rid the galaxy of the Empire only to allow a new blight to rise in its place.

_No more Jedi, no more Sith._

Ben’s words rang across her mind. He agreed with Luke, that was clear; they both believed that the Jedi had to end. But then…

_Where does that leave me?_

Rey raised her head, and stared at her callused hands. They had moved tonnes of rocks, and they had controlled the minds of men; all through the Force. Through the thing she had never asked for, but which had been born in her, her birthright.

_If I’m not a Jedi, if the Jedi must end, then….what am I?_

“So many questions, you have. So many answers, you will not find by staring into space, hm?”

Rey leapt upright, and seized her staff in one fluid movement. She pivoted on the ball of one foot, her heart hammering but her hands already shifting the staff into attack position, more practiced than her mind; they began to swing the staff forwards, to hit whoever had spoken-

Rey froze, her muscles locking into place in shock.

Before her, sitting on the same grassy knoll that she had been, was the strangest creatures she had ever seen. Including some of the more unusual inhabitants of Jakku.

He was tiny, bipedal, with long, pointed ears and three fingered hands; and he was surrounded by a blue nimbus, which diffused into the air around him like mist. Rey met his eyes, which were ancient, and which glittered with a humour that wasn't quite kind.

She felt the incomprehensibly huge amount of Force that surrounded him.

The small creature giggled with apparent glee. “Calm yourself, you will. Just wanted to get a look at you, I did. Young Skywalker spoke truly.”

The creature gave her one long, narrow, appraising look, nodded once as though satisfied, and then disappeared. A presence that Rey had not been aware of until now disappeared with him, fading back into the landscape.

“Wait!” Rey shouted, spinning on the spot, trying to catch a glimpse of the creature again. “You know Luke Skywalker? Who are you? What-”

She broke off, breathing heavily, when she saw that no trace of the unexpected visitor remained.

Rey shivered. The black husk of the Jedi tree seemed more unfriendly now, more sinister without that presence in the Force; she turned, and began to walk quickly away from its brooding ruin. She slipped through a cleft in the rock, and emerged on to the side of the mountain.

The promised storm was closing in; flickering forks of lightning were visible in the distance, chasing across a bruised sky.

She shivered in the cold breeze. It felt as though something was watching her, neither friendly nor unfriendly, merely appraising, and the sense of eyes on her back made her hackles rise.

Rey pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, and set off for her pitiful home, walking slightly more quickly than she had done before.

 

***********

 

Kylo Ren was inspecting his troops. They stretched before him, endless rank upon endless rank, perfectly placed, perfectly serried, perfectly ordered. He walked down the gap left open for him, black robes billowing in stark contrast to their clinical whiteness, face impassive and imperial.

The Stormtrooper programme was, he considered, one of the First Order’s greatest successes. Orphan children, unwanted children, children whose families could give them nothing; they were brought into the First Order, given a name, a purpose, a way of life that was so much more meaningful than digging for scraps in the junkyards of the world. The Tattooines, the Jakkus.

Kylo swallowed convulsively. One of these days, he was going to visit Jakku. And in his wake he would leave a bloody scar that would live in legend for many generations to come.

A Stormtrooper caught sight of his face, and took an involuntary step backwards, momentarily breaking the perfect symmetry of the lines before their fellows pushed them back into place.

Kylo smoothed his expression, and continued to walk down the middle of the serried ranks of troopers. Their white armour gleamed in the cold, artificial light; durasteel and enamel glinted in perfect order. Expressionless helmets bowed in deference as he passed.

Hux walked behind him. Kylo could feel the smug pleasure that the man gained from the bowed heads, the servility; bile rose in his throat. The man was, truly, a rabid cur. Mindless, senseless, vile.

One day, he would have to be put down, and Kylo would be the one to do it. And oh, what a day that would be. 

They reached the end of the line. He turned back to face the faceless legions before him, and Hux bellowed out a dismissal that he barely even tried to pay attention to.

Kylo nodded once in acknowledgement of the display, and stepped through the sliding steel doors of the hangar. He waved away his guards, who had automatically followed him, and they fell back uncertainly; but he knew they would obey.

They knew the consequences if they did not.

Kylo strode through the blank, impersonal halls of the _Finalizer_. He stepped into a lift, and keyed in a code that only he knew; the lift began to move smoothly upwards, hissing open with a pneumatic sigh when it reached his private quarters.

Kylo sighed, and flung himself down into a wide armchair that stood by his desk.

It was all so…tedious. Meaningless. The First Order was the might of the galaxy, and had every star system under their thumb, and yet he was forced to spend his days examining troops that he would never meet, showing his face to maintain discipline, rather than hunting down the Rebel scum as he wanted to.

And _oh_ , he wanted to. With every fibre in his body.

He remembered the mind of Poe Dameron. The endless smiles that General Organa, _his mother_ , had given him, the meetings, the help, the mentorship. The love that he felt for her, he, that worm who had no right to feel such things for something that belonged to Kylo. Even if he had discarded that relationship, it was still _his_.

And now she was dead. His mother was gone, her life used in the service of Rebels who did not deserve such a rich sacrifice.

They were all going to pay.

Kylo let the rage settle into his heart, almost comforting in its familiar pain. _Phantom hands brushed his hair, and a phantom voice sang to him, a half-forgotten lullaby._

He would have his revenge on those who had wasted her life, on those who had blighted both his past and his future. They had stolen his mother, and they had stolen Rey. Both of them were _his_.

But…

Kylo stood, and walked across the cold, durasteel floor to the huge transparisteel window. The endless dark of space rolled out before him, a tapestry of airless beauty.

Maybe, just maybe, Rey was not yet lost. Maybe, she could be brought to reason. She felt it too, he knew she did, that call to the dark; if he was half-lost, then so was she. If the light lived in his veins, then the dark swelled in hers.

_Maybe she could be turned. But then again, maybe I could be._

The thought was half-hopeful, half-acidic. She was so powerful, so strong; what would they create together? What world would they build, if she would come to him, renounce her murderous friends, cast off their treacherous loyalty and join him?

She was heat, she was raging strength unchecked. He was a wildfire, a destructive maelstrom.

Together, they could set the world aflame.

 

************

 

Rey made it back to her hut seconds before the storm broke.

As the door clicked shut behind her, the first peal of thunder rattled the ceiling, and the first drops of rain ricocheted with surprising force from the ancient stone.

Rey grimaced, and walked across to the glowing embers of her fire. She bent down, crouching close enough to feel the heat on her face, and blew gently; flame rose from the grey wood, and she pulled a few new logs on to the newly-born blaze.

She stripped her cloak from around her shoulders, and stretched it out across the wooden bench to dry. She may have escaped the rain, but the omnipresent sea-spray still left her almost permanently damp; _what would I give for dry clothes,_ she thought in disgust as she watched steam rise from the oilcloth. 

She tried to put the strange creature out of her mind; she didn’t need yet another question without an answer to keep her awake at night. He hadn't told her anything useful, anyway. Just like Luke. No wonder they were friends.

Rey yawned, and her stomach rumbled insistently. She pulled a ration bar from her pocket, and tore into it with abandon; it tasted like dried fungus, but it was still a thousand times better than what she had lived on in the desert.

Rey moved across to her bedroll, and sat on it, stretching like a cat. Maybe she would get some meditation in before the evening…

_A deep bass thrumming, and the sensation of airlessness._

And then-

Kylo sat opposite her, on the ground on the other side of the fire. He was wearing black, as always, but it was…soft, somehow. Not the rigid, starched uniform he wore like a carapace, but a cloak of flowing material that folded and rippled where it struck the ground.

His face was pale, his eyes wide, his full mouth open slightly in surprise. His black hair curled at the ends, reaching down to just below his chin, and Rey was electrically aware of where it touched his cheek, his neck. She shook herself mentally.

_Please Force, not now._

They watched each other in silence for a few moments, both wary, neither wanting to be the first to speak. The fire hissed, the new logs drying with the odd explosive _crack_ ; rain continued to hammer on the roof, but Ben’s presence seemed to absorb the sound, like a black hole, like the vacuum of space.

Rey opened her mouth to break the silence, but Kylo raised a hand, and she shut it again.

“First lesson,” he said, and Rey sat up slightly straighter.

He stood, long legs unfolding as he levered himself upright. He paced around the edge of the fire, and reached Rey’s bedroll.

There was a slight flush, high on his cheeks, as he looked down at where she slept. Rey was confused . The heat of the fire, maybe?

He coughed, quietly, and said “May I?”

Rey shuffled wordlessly aside, making space on the blankets. He folded himself back down, sitting in the cross-legged meditation pose, and gestured to her to do the same.

She turned, facing him, and mimicked his position. Something hot seemed to be painting itself across her skin; the fire must be warmer than she had realised.

He was close. So close. His dark, usually burning eyes were gentle, calm; they were fixed on her face, and Rey felt a flush beginning at the base of her neck.

He spoke, and his voice was soft, easily audible even over the hammering rain.

“I felt you, Rey, when you meditated last night. You were unfocussed, too easily led; your mind was an open book.”

Rey opened her mouth, outraged that he would start with such a pointed criticism, but he held up a hand again and she shut her mouth with a furious frown.

He smiled slightly, which did not help her temper.

“It’s not your fault. You’ve never been taught. You’re doing remarkably well, considering, but you need to learn; otherwise any force user will be able to know exactly what you think, how you feel, as soon as you lower your guard. If you are to be my pupil, first you need to build walls. A fortress, where you are safe, even while you sleep.”

Rey blinked. That sounded….not evil. Not Dark. Just….sensible.

“How?” she asked, reaching a hand towards her temple as though she could swat away the alien thoughts battering at her consciousness.

Ben moved slightly, his hand jerking reflexively as though he wanted to take her fingers from her temple, but he did not. Instead, he closed his eyes, and placed his hands on his knees. Rey saw his knuckles whiten, as though it was somehow an effort.

“Close your eyes. Follow my breathing.”

Rey studied his face for a moment, and then followed suit. She closed her eyes, and breathed. She fell into the meditation pattern easily; it was familiar by now, if not completely second nature. She reached out in the Force, unconsciously.

There he was. A dark, brooding presence, striped with tiny veins of light like some of the agate stones that had been found on Jakku. Rey had found one once; it had been valuable enough that she had received six portions for it, and she had eaten two in one sitting, rendered greedy by her unexpected riches.

“You’re thinking of Jakku. You’re thinking of being hungry.”

Kylo’s voice was low, and laden with an emotion Rey didn’t recognise. Her eyes flew open, and she scowled.

“Get out of my head,” she hissed. He didn’t react, didn’t even open his eyes, but he lifted one elegant eyebrow.

“I’m not trying to be in it, believe me; you’re projecting.”

Rey scowled again, and closed her eyes. This reminded her of Luke; his infuriating insistence that she just _be better_ at something that had never been explained, never taught. With her memories of Luke, she remembered with a jolt that she was meant to be letting go of emotion, as a Jedi would; she tried guiltily to expunge the anger from her mind, to find tranquillity. She thought she heard Ben snort slightly, but she didn’t open her eyes this time.

“Harness your feelings, Rey. Take the desire for your thoughts to be yours, and yours alone, and shape it into walls. Make those who try and run up against it sorry that they tried; make them hurt for trying to know your mind without your permission.”

It was like the Jakku desert, Rey thought; there was no point in hiding something if there were no consequences for those who tried to take it. She felt for the defensive fear she felt, and tried to…shape it somehow? It was difficult. It was slippery, and insubstantial, and it didn’t cooperate with her when she wanted it to.

She heard Kylo breathing deeply, in a rhythmic, even pattern.

“Would it help if I gave you some motivation?”

Rey frowned, but didn’t open her eyes. “How important is it that I master this?”

“Without a secure base on which to build, any progress that you make will be unstable. It will not take much to bring your mind crashing down upon itself. You might be left mad, if you’re lucky.”

Rey felt a thrill of electric fear run through her veins. “Do it, then.”

Kylo took a deep breath, and was silent for a few moments. Rey felt nothing. And then…

_Hunger. Pain. Sadness. Crushing loneliness, her only company the star-filled sky and the scratches on the wall._

Rey growled, but Kylo spoke before she could jump to her feet. His voice was velvet, soft and low and strong.

“Keep me out. You’ve done it before; do it again, but this time _feel_ what you are doing, _know_ what you are doing. Make it permanent. Make it _strong_.”

The images continued to flicker behind Rey’s eyelids. _Half a portion, all she had left when her weekly food was stolen. Desert sand in her eyes, scratching, blinding. The broken body of a little girl, one who had once shared her water with her, found after a sandstorm._

Tears filled Rey’s eyes. She scrambled for control, for the walls she was meant to be building, but the memories were coming too thick and fast, now, for her to stop them-

_Finn’s body, bloody on the ground. Memories of Poe, his smile, Leia, their goodbye-_

“NO!”

Rey threw up walls in her mind so thick and so fast that she _felt_ Kylo ejected, and heard a slam. She opened her eyes, panting, furious tears blurring her vision.

He was still sitting opposite her, but everything else in the hut was now in complete disarray. The bench stood on its side; her meagre possessions had been flung against the wall, and the fire had spread from its careful circle of stones to leave blackening embers against the earthen floor.

“That’s private. It’s _mine_ ,” Rey hissed.

He didn’t reply. He was staring at her as though he had seen a ghost, his dark eyes wide and somehow scared. Rey could feel the walls in her mind now, could tell that he wasn’t looking at her thoughts.

So what was making his lip quiver, his hands shake?

Rey hesitantly, carefully, so carefully reached across the space between them. There was a breathless moment, and then her hand was on his, gripping it through thousands of miles of space.

He started at the contact, and looked down at their joined hands. He swallowed, and Rey saw his lip tremble.

He looked up at her, and their eyes met. His were dark, consuming, endless. She wondered how she looked, to him. Dirty, ragged...

“That last memory. Of General Organa.”

Rey tensed. She would not betray the Resistance, no matter what temporary arrangement she had reached with Ben. He had not seen anything, not heard anything that would give away their position; she was sure of that.

“When was that? When did you last see her?”

Rey blinked, trying to find a hidden trap in the question. Ben was gripping her hand back, suddenly, his fingers rough, and strong, and urgent.

“Before I left. Before I came here. After Crait, when…Ben?”

Kylo’s mouth had dropped open, and Rey saw his throat working as though he were trying to swallow words that he couldn’t say.

She was confused; there was pain in his eyes, and gladness, and he looked so young in that moment that her heart ached in her chest-

She was suddenly alone, her hand gripping only air. The bass note ceased; its comforting reverberations died away, replaced by the thunder of hammering rain.

He was gone.

Rey sat back, her empty hand stinging slightly.

That had been strange. Intense, and strange, and uncomfortable. Was this what every lesson with him would be like? It may be necessary, and she certainly felt safer now that she could feel her mind secure behind walls that were so thick none could ever burrow through them, but…

She was abruptly exhausted. Ben was a mystery, as he always was; it would do her no good to agonise over his reactions. And he had helped her, in his own way; it had certainly been far quicker with his ‘motivation’. And she was safe now. That’s what mattered; even if her deal with the devil was uncomfortable, it was effective. It meant she could return to the Resistance that much faster, no longer a liability, but an asset.

And then...

_Fight against the First Order. Against Ben._ The thought sent confusing shivers down her spine, and a strange, sick feeling lodged itself in her heart.

Rey lay down on her sleeping roll, her limbs heavy with sleep already. The clean-up from her explosion could wait until tomorrow.

She ran her mind over the new fortifications in it, like a tongue over teeth, testing for holes, or cracks, or corrosion. They felt strong, secure; they would last the night.

She turned her face away from the ruined fire, and fell asleep.

 

**********

  
  
Kylo looked down at his empty hand.

_She’s alive. My mother is alive._

The thought flooded him with alien, long-ignored feelings. Hints of memory. He repressed them, stamped their light out viciously.

_I killed my father. If I have to, I will kill my mother._

The thought send shards of ice working into his heart, and he remembered the feeling of his father's hand on his face, the red glow of his lightsaber as it ignited, the taste of vomit that still clung to his tongue when he thought about that night. His father. Gone, by his hand

_It was necessary._

He gritted his teeth, and refocussed his thoughts to the only thing that could distract him from his blood soaked memories.

_Rey._

His _pupil_. She was safe, now, behind walls of durasteel in her own mind; no malicious whispers would come to her in the night, no Snoke would warp and bend her will to his. Kylo would save her from that, at least.

And she had touched him again. Voluntarily, without asking, without being ordered, she had stretched a hand out to him, offering comfort.

_And her memories…._

So much pain, and hunger. Heat, and suffering, and loss. They had made his heart ache for her, for the child she had been; her world was one that he could not comprehend, had he not shared her thoughts, a million miles removed from the austere plenty of his own childhood.

And now she was hardly better off; shivering on some unknown island, alone, trapped. Kylo cursed, and slammed a hand down against his thigh. Her resistance was so…futile. So pointless. She suffered, alone, when she could be ruling the galaxy, when she could be an _Empress_. A _goddess_.

Kylo ran his hands through his hair; it smelled of woodsmoke.

_No, not alone. She didn’t suffer alone._

Kylo placed his head in his hands, and leaned back in his comfortless chair.

She seemed determined to punish him, as well as herself.

Well, when the Rebels were crushed, she would have no cause to return to. And he would have no more temptations that he could not defeat.

Save her.

She would come to him, then.

Kylo stood, decisive, and pressed the wallpad to open the door to his bedchamber. He could not be sure when his next lesson with Rey would be, but in the meantime, he could do something useful.

He folded himself, cross-legged, on his bed, and reached out in the Force.

He searched.

He _found_.

His mother, alive but weak, millions of miles away, looked up in shock.

Kylo opened his eyes again, and smiled. Not yet, not now; but soon, he would find them. All of them.

_Let the past die,_ he thought, as he stared out of the huge transparisteel window into the dark of space. _Kill it if you have to._

_And then I can become what I was meant to be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOOH SPACE ANGST. Holy moly these kids have a lot of feelings they need to work out. 
> 
> I'm sorry this took so long; I've been distracted with all manner of things, and only really found time to write properly this week. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think of this update; I'd love to hear your thoughts.
> 
> Also, I'm on tumblr at cox-orange-pippin. Come be my friend! And send me any prompts that you want written! I am super in the mood to do some oneshots, and it's always nice to do ones that I wouldn't think of!


	5. Chapter 5

That night, Rey dreamed of Jakku.

It had been a long time since she had allowed those memories to haunt her sleep, to flay her with hot, dry waves of pain as they used to when she was young; but whatever long-buried images Ben had released during his lesson had risen up in her mind, worming their way out from her subconscious into bloody night phantasms of orange and red.

_Hunger. Pain. Dry, suffocating heat, that lodged itself in her throat like a physical obstruction._

Rey turned over in her sleep, her blankets shifting free of the tight roll she had wrapped around her body. The fire had burned low, and her breath steamed in the chill air.

The dreams stabbed at her, lances of remembered suffering. Her breathing was harsh in the night-silence, and she was sweating despite the cold; _the sun was too bright, too bright, it was everywhere, it was burning her, blinding her-_

Rey didn’t hear the throb of silence that blanketed the room. She didn’t see Ben sit up, confused, his own heart pounding with nightmares that were not his own.

 

 

Ben had had only a confused impression of reds, and oranges, and a terrible thirst before he awoke with a start. He opened his eyes, bleary with sleep, and saw not the steel sleekness of his chambers, but the crumbling pattern of bricks above him, tapering to a point in the ceiling.

He shot upright, his mind working furiously for a few moments, dark sleeping-clothes clinging to his sweat-damp skin.

_What is this, where am I, who-_

His sleep-mired mind dragged itself into the present moment, and Kylo became aware of the slight thrumming of the Force all around him, beating like a hummingbird’s wings in his subconscious. His heart slowed, the panic receding with every slow breath. He knew this place. He knew that familiar, sweet note in his mind. And that meant…

His heart clenching in painful anticipation, he looked across the tiny hut, his pupils narrowing against the faint light of the glowing embers.

And there she was.

_Rey._

She was on her side, her back to him, arms curled protectively around her head. Her dark hair was untied, and lay across the pale blanket like an ink stain; blankets were strewn around her as though she had fought them off in her sleep. She wore only a loose tunic, and the pale skin of her back was exposed; a constellation of freckles reached down her spine, and hid when they disappeared behind the material of her sleeping clothes.

Kylo stared. And kept staring.

She was so…small. So vulnerable, her narrow shoulders hunched as though in misery. Her hackles was always up around him, always spoiling for a fight, always looking for a slight in his words (apart from that once, and Kylo would never allow himself to remember it; two hands, touching, firelight and _never alone again never alone_ ), but now she was unspooled from her tightly wound skein of defensiveness.

She was beautiful. The knowledge, always present in the back of his mind when they spoke, rose forcefully in a wave of heat to the front of his thoughts. Her skin caught and held the remainder of the dying firelight, and she shone. But then again, Kylo thought as he stared at her, compared to his own vast void of blackness, she always shone.

His eyes roamed across the freckles that he had never seen before, that maybe no one had ever seen before, and he felt a sharp flare of want licking across the base of his stomach like a consuming flame. He wanted to see every one of those freckles, to count them, kiss them, _claim them_ -

He stood before his rational mind had caught up with him, moving quietly from where he had been near the door to the ruined sleeping roll. He moved to the side, to see Rey’s face, his hand reaching out towards her-

Kylo stopped with a sharp intake of breath, his reaching fingers curling backwards in shock.

He could see Rey’s face now, where it was protectively huddled between her arms. Her mouth was open, and her breathing was harsh; tears trickled down the side of her eyes, disappearing into her dark hair.

Kylo remembered the reasons he had woken, the strange _heat-pain-sadness_ of the dreams that had shaken him from sleep. They weren’t his.

They were Rey’s.

Kylo felt the want disappearing from his veins as though doused in ice water. It was replaced by a terrible ache, an ache which he had no name for. Kylo studied Rey’s face for a moment, and watched one of the tears as it ran silently on its path down her freckled cheek.

She shuddered in her sleep, and turned suddenly onto her back, her arms flung backwards above her head. A quiet sob escaped her lips, and another tear escaped, glittering in the barely-living firelight.

Kylo knelt down next to her, quietly panicking. She was suffering; she was hurting. Something in him twisted in recognition of her pain.

_But what do I do...?_

Dim memories came back to him of his own childhood nightmares, of the days when the voices had first started whispering to him in the dim shadows of sleep. Of his mother’s voice, and her hands in his hair, and a lullaby…

Kylo extended one trembling hand.

He stroked Rey’s hair once, softly, so softly, so carefully, his long fingers stroking from the top of her head to the place her hair spread in tangled snarls on the pillow. She didn’t wake, or move; her harsh breathing didn’t change.

Kylo took a deep breath, and stroked her hair again, combing his fingers rhythmically through the dark strands. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and began to hum a long-buried tune, the one that his mother had sung to him; the notes felt strange in his throat, the words half-remembered. His deep voice blended with the almost-darkness of the hut.

For a minute or so, nothing changed; but then, slowly, miraculously, Rey’s breathing eased slightly, growing less grating. Kylo kept his fingers brushing across Rey’s dark hair, kept humming the lullaby which had soothed away his pain so many years ago.

\-----------------

_In Rey’s dream, the heat-pain-light was so intense that she couldn’t breathe. It was burning the blood from her veins, boiling it like the few drops of water that fell from the sky even in the depths of winter in the desert. She was burning, she was dying-_

_Clouds gathered above her head. Her blood ceased boiling; a single drop of rain fell, sizzling on her parched skin. And suddenly..._

_Darkness washed over the sun, slowly at first and then in a rush of cool blackness, and it was blessed relief. Thunderhead clouds built into towering pillars of bruise-grey, and the single drop became another, and another, until rain was pouring like a blessing from the sky. It cooled her skin, and soothed her parched throat, and Rey laughed, and danced in the downpour. The sand clung to her feet, and she raised her face to the sky and allowed the rain to fall into her smiling, open mouth._

_The rain washed the sand away, until she was standing on some kind of soft greenness. Grass. Rey ran her hands through its wet leaves, and lay on her back in the thundering rain. It was a miracle._  
\------------------

Rey’s harsh breaths evened; her sweat-chilled chest stopped heaving. Kylo watched her face as she calmed, and when the last tear had dried on her cheek, he removed his hand from her hair, and allowed his voice to die out mid-note.

It was dark in the hut, and quiet. The only sound now was the distant wind, and the crash of what sounded like waves. Kylo’s heartbeat felt very loud.

Rey was sleeping properly now. There was no reason for him to sit by her like this, as though keeping a vigil, but he was reluctant to move. She was so rarely unguarded, and her face now was utterly open; the bright glitter of anger was absent from her closed eyes, and her eyelashes lay dark against her skin. Her lips were open slightly…

Kylo reached out towards her, and placed his hand on her cheek. His thumb stroked once from her cheekbone to her brow, her skin soft and yielding beneath his hand. He felt her turn towards his touch slightly, leaning in to the pressure of his fingers…

 

 

Rey disappeared, replaced with the semi-darkness of his quarters on the _Finalizer_. Kylo allowed his fingers to drop from where they now lay against empty air, touching only the darkness.

Desolation gripped his heart for a moment. 

Kylo lay back down in his silk sheets, and thought of Rey’s closed eyes, her peaceful breathing like a lullaby.

He slept, this time without borrowed nightmares.

 

 

Back on Ahch To, in her small stone hut, Rey opened her eyes, and sat up. She had kicked off her blankets; the cold must have been what woke her. But her face felt strangely warm; she touched her cheek, and felt the quick pulsing of blood beneath her fingertips.

_Strange_.

Shrugging, Rey pulled the blankets back around herself, forming a tight cocoon. She still had a few hours to sleep; no sense in starting the day before she had to.

Sleep rose up in dark waves and claimed her, and she slept, dreaming of nothing at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS it's all gone a bit Twilight........
> 
> Sorry for the shorter chapter this time; it just felt like the natural place to end it. 
> 
> Plz let me know what you think with a comment/kudos! It makes my day and gives me the motivation to keep writing! And thank you to the lovelies who've commented so far! 
> 
> Also, I'm on tumblr at cox-orange-pippin. Come say hey! And also send me any prompts that you want written! I'm still compiling a list of oneshot ideas that I want to write, and I always need more!


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